April 17 is National Health Decision Day.  In conjunction with that, there will be a screening of the Oscar–nominated short documentary “End Game“, followed by a presentation by Dr. B. J. Miller. The evening will end with opportunity for interactive Q&A.

The program will begin at 6:30pm (doors open at 5:30pm) at the CALS Ron Robinson Theater.  It is presented by the UAMS Division Of Palliative Medicine funded by a grant from the Dorothy Snider Foundation.

BJ Miller, M.D., is a palliative care physician in San Francisco who began his “formal relationship with death”at age 19 when he was involved in an accident that resulted in the amputation of one arm below the elbow and both legs below the knee. Drawing on his expertise as a physician, former executive director of Zen Hospice Project, and as a patient, he is an advocate for a health care system that maximizes quality of life and that minimizes unnecessary suffering.

His TED Talk, “What Really Matters at the End of Life,” about keeping the patient at the center of care and encouraging empathic end-of-life care, and has garnered over 6 million views and ranks among the most viewed talks. He encourages us to reorient and reframe our relationship to the inevitable, that which we don’t control, and brings creative power and meaning-making to death, believing that death is the agent that helps us experience anything precious in life.